JOE LIEBERMAN NEVER MUCH CARED FOR THE PUNK ROCKERS, AND THE PUNK ROCKERS FELT HURT. ANGRY SAMOAN GREGG TURNER STRIKES BACK!

No doubt, if he thought about it at all, Joe Lieberman envisioned the songwriters and musicians who he attacked -- especially the rappers and rockers-- as winding up on the scrap-heap of history. They were trash under his godly feet and destined for jails and drug rehab centers. Moralistic old white men have always looked under the beds for boogiemen and pop culture was never not a target. Put that together with a sly demagogue like Lieberman, always on the hunt for campaign dollars and always looking to burnish his "I Ain't No Liberal" credentials in the minds of folks frightened by the winds of cultural change and garden variety teenage rebellion, and you wind up with the kind of extremist political grandstanding that even Republicans had to reject as too over the top! His hideous censorship legislation was vetoed by George Bush's father. And the musicians whose lives were Lieberman's props? Well not many will be running into Randy "Duke" Cunningham and the other right-wing pols who are in fact on their way to prison cells. One who still remembers Lieberman's culture wars is songwriter/guitar player Gregg Turner of L.A. punk rockers, The Angry Samoans. Today Gregg is a mathematic professor, whose area of expertise is differential equations and chaos theory. He still harbors some feelings about a man who apparently thought his role was to be the Savonarola of American politics.

As a co-founding member of the Angry Samoans, I feel the need to clock in and convey the appropriate indignation and vitriol per the current neo-nazification of the US of A. Let me first mention that Howie Klein and I go back a long way. Howie’s invigoration (and recent notoriety) in the political blogosphere, staring down the entities of corporate authoritarian tyranny that now threaten to  subsume what’s left of the few remaining shards of democracy in this country, makes a compelling case for us all to become equally involved and raise our voice. When the corporate record industry back in the seventies couldn’t churn out enough Eagles-like drek to drown us all in a soporific tide of stepfordwife-music pablum,  Howie led the charge  to make icons of the Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones, Nuns, Dead Boys and Handsome Dick Manitoba in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Howie spearheaded the re-emergence of ex-13th Floor Elevator lead singer/song-writer Roky Erickson (who’s recent comeback in Austin, Texas owes a debt to the cult-following that accrued following his 415 Records [Howie’s Bay Area record company in the late seventies] release, THE EVIL ONE), as well as championing, promoting and jump-starting the careers of countless maverick and upstart anti-establishment  entities.  His involvement as a conduit to counter-kulture back then was equally emblematic to the provocative discourse he now promotes in DWT.

The Angry Samoans pursued, in our own way, a similar impetus at the same time down in Southern California.  Scene-political in the sense of locking horns with those pledging allegiance to false idols  (“Get Off The Air”), and socio-political in expressing our contempt of ruling class norms (“You Stupid Asshole”). “Homo-Sexual” was not the gay-baiting epithet, a la FEAR, some mistakenly believed (see song credit to “J. Falwell”); the lyrics (“screw your wife in the behind, tell your kids your doin fine …”) attempted metaphorical jabs, if you will, at the religious right back then. In 1981
there was no reason to believe that, in fact, “They” would or could have “Saved Hitler’s Cock;” but they apparently did. “They stuffed it in Mengele’s sock,” claimed the prescient lyrics that I'd scrawled on napkins at a Sushi bar after generous sake, but this was really just invocation of poetic, uhm, license. Wasn't until only 2 years ago, that Andy Shernoff of the Dictators e-mailed me the e-Bay ad where some progeny of Russian military from WWII was actually auctioning it, supposedly the honest-2-god real H's C-ck that the father had in truth captured and saved in formaldehyde, for a minimum bid of $25,000, DNA-sampled authenticity included (true). Despite this ultimate truth stranger than sake hallucination, in those days I would have maintained the message of the tune to be a warning that there will always be a veritable Hitler's C-ck waiting in the shadows to, uhm, f-ck liberty and justice for all just in case anyone takes it for granted. Now fast forward 25 years.

It seemingly came from Mengele’s sock straight into the White House, just in case you’re wondering how this megalomaniacal reptilian imbecile managed to co-opt a two-term presidency. Folks, we have a crisis to deal with. It is unclear to me how stacked the deck really is with respect to rigged voting machines and the capacity that our votes will actually be counted to eradicate these panty-waist fascists from power. Still, Smirk’s poll support seems to be wallowing in sufficient cesspool depth,  and hence there seems to be a ghost of hope for the Dems to take back at least half the Congress.  If even just the House, we could be looking at impeachment proceedings within twelve months. Of course the imminence of this ain’t lost on the puppet masters presently pulling the strings. If you believe that these sociopathic losers were complicit in either the allowance or manufacture of 9/11,  then you won’t be surprised when we invade Iran or witness the demolition of the Sears Tower in Chicago prior to 11/6. In the off chance they fail to pull this off, declare martial law and suspend elections altogether, then you better get mobilized to defend what’s left of democracy in this sad country, and rally the troops to get the job done. We have less than eight months. Time to toss on a vinyl copy of “Kick Out the Jams” and crank to 140 db. If we ever needed the reincarnation of Brother Rob Tyner to lead us out this mess, it’s now. Anyone not part of the solution, is the problem. And certainly the most atrocious and glaring of these problems is Joe Lieberman. And this is a problem that can dealt with now, thanks to Ned Lamont's courageous primary challenge. If Patti Smith is correct, that in fact people do have the power, more than ever we need to demonstrate this in a show of force in the CT primary. Defeating Lieberwhore will fire a salvo that could, in turn, detonate the status quo and consolidation of constipated power. I encourage everyone with a whisper of conscience and a ray of expectation that things might turn around, to make, in some substantive way, their presence felt in this primary contest. “If Hitler’s Cock could choose it’s mate, it would ask for Sharon Tate!” Again, perspicacious those sushi napkins from '81: we gotta get rid of Sharon Tate and send Ned Lamont to the Senate. When that sewage is cleaned up, we deal with Hillary and Feinstein, Biden et al, take back the Democratic party, incarcerate Bush and Cheney and send the rest of the Republican gestapo to day camps with continuous LSD force feeds a la WILD IN THE STREETS... I dream big.

Gregg inspired himself, donated some money to Lamont's campaign and told me it was ok to leave his e-mail address in case any present or "former" Lieberman staffer has any interest in debating him. Gregg can be reached at thetapewormstory@comcast.net